Call of Duty 4 X360 Map Pack Expected This Week

update.


at about 6am EST this morning xbox live kicked me from cod4 and upon restarting informed me that it had an update. amazing i was pumped downloaded and installed the update. it updated the menu to tell me that there were new downloadable maps. awesome i was pumped clicked on the link took me to the live skin to purchase new media only to have it tell me how many points i have, let me purchase more points, and another option which said "More info". more info doesnt work and there are no new maps to download. fuck you infinityward.

For-Pay Map Packs are fundamentally incompatible with PC online gaming. It all boils down to the differences between matchmaking vs the centralized server model.

In matchmaking, the system is set up to put higher precedence on who you are playing with, rather than what "server" you are playing on. This makes it easier to segregate players based on whether or not you have the extra content. This also makes it less of a concern if you get disconnected due to lack of content, because you can just take your party somewhere else and play on a new "server".

In the PC gaming server-focused environment, the server becomes the destination, rather than who you are playing with. This has pluses and minuses. On the plus side, you can generate a sense of community around a server (or set of servers) that is just not possible using the matchmaking system. You also have more control over who you are playing AGAINST, not just who you are playing with (and not relying on the matchmaking system to decide for you). The big downside to this system, from a developers standpoint, is that extra for-pay content just doesn't work in this environment. No server, especially a popular one, will choose to willingly run extra content if it will lead to half the population getting dumped when the new maps come up. If it's free, then people can usually download it in-game, making the content disparity on non-issue. Go ask the Battlefield crowd how great all the "booster packs" worked, and you'll catch a glimpse of a possible future for-pay COD4 map pack.

Personally, I prefer the server-focused model. Visiting a favorite server is like stopping by your favorite pub - you know most of the people and you'll usually have a good time. Matchmaking is more akin to having your group of friends who all hang out together, but you visit a different pub every night. You have about a 50/50 chance of either having a great time or having to put up with a bunch of blithering retards.

Note: this extra content issue does not apply to expansion packs, as they generally segregate the population based on content (they usually have an entirely different set of maps, essentially a different game).

In closing (tl;dr), Infinity Ward - release these free on the PC, or don't bother at all.

How do you Battlefield 2 gamers feel about CoD 4?

My take is that CoD 4 is a smaller, simpler, faster paced version of BF2. The game is extremely well polished and balanced. The perk system is genius but after playing it for a couple months I think I exhausted the gameplay. I still load up CoD 4 now and then but the maps are so small. There is not much too them. I pretty much know what direction the other team is coming from. I know the choke points to get easy kills and I definitely know where the snipers like to hang out. And because of the the Halo style, spawn near a random teammate instead of a fixed spawn point, there's not much you can do in the way of tactics. All you can really do is just run around on your own and try to rack up kills (kinda like Halo). It's not a very deep game.

For these reasons, I think more maps, new maps is just what CoD 4 needs.

Woot I say, woot!

I LOL at paying for map packs when pc gamers used to get this stuff for free from the developers/publishers and from the modding community. $10 for 4 maps, give me a frigging break.....

I once again say, "What about a PC release of the maps?"

I really need to play this more. I got Bioshock and COD4 at the same time, and in the free time I have for FPS games lately, Bioshock has been getting all the love. I can't can't get enough of that atmosphere, but what little I played of COD4 was awesome too, and I want to get back into that.